Jaᶇalif, Yangalif or Yañalif (Tatar: jaᶇa əlifba/yaña älifba → jaᶇalif/yañalif [jʌŋɑˈlif], Cyrillic: Яңалиф, "new alphabet") is the first Latin alphabet used during the Soviet epoch for the Turkic languages (also Iranian languages, North Caucasian languages, Mongolian languages, Finno-Ugric languages, Tungus-Manchu languages, Paleo-Asiatic languages; project for Russian is unaccepted in 1930) in the 1930s. It replaced the Yaña imlâArabic script-based alphabet in 1928 and was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1938-1940; several former Soviet states in Central Asia switched back to Latin script, with slight modifications to the original Jaᶇalif.

There are 33 letters in Jaᶇalif; nine are for vowels. The apostrophe is used for the glottal stop (həmzə/hämzä) and is sometimes sorted as a letter. Other characters are also in use for foreign names. The small letter B looks like ʙ (to prevent confusion with Ь ь), and the capital letter Y looks like У. The letter Ꞑ ᶇ () looks like N n/ŋ which has a descender as in Cyrillic letters Щ, Җ, Ң. The letter no. 33 (similar to ZhuangƄ) is not represented in Unicode, but it looks exactly like Cyrillic soft sign (Ь). Capital Ə also looks like Russian Э in some fonts.

The earliest example of the Kipchak language, specifically the Cuman language, the main ancestor of the modern Tatar language and written with Latin characters, is the Codex Cumanicus. These letters were used in Catholic ceremonies among Turkic Catholics within the Golden Horde. The culture of Catholic Hordians disappeared and this alphabet was lost.

For centuries the Tatar language as well as other Turkic languages used a modified Arabic alphabet, İske imlâ. The alphabet was far from perfect, both technically and logically (different initial, medium, final and stand-alone forms, no glyphs for short vowels). Because of this some Turkic intelligentsia tended to use the Latin or even Cyrillic script. The first attempts appeared in the mid-19th century among Azerbaijanis.[1] At the same period the Russian missionary Ilminski, along with followers, invented the modified Russian alphabet for all peoples of Idel-Ural. Modern alphabet uses other glyphs: (Ә instead of Ӓ, Ө instead of Ӧ, Ү instead of Ӱ, Җ instead of Ж, Ң instead of Ҥ), the principles of the modern Cyrillic Tatar alphabet was invented then. Ilmiski's alphabet was used for the purpose of Christianization and Muslim Tatars did not use his alphabet. Ilminski's alphabet is still used among Keräşen Tatars. This alphabet uses pre-revolutionary Russian spelling of Orthodox names, using Fita and Ukrainian I.

In 1908–1909 the Tatar poet Säğit Rämiev started to use the Latin script in his works. He offered the use of digraphs: ea for ä, eu for ü, eo for ö and ei for ı. Arabists turned down his project. In the early 1920s Azerbaijanis devised their own Latin alphabet, but Tatarstan scholars set a little store to this project, preferring to reform the İske imlâ. The simplified Iske imla, known as Yaña imlâ was used from 1920–1927.[1]

Latinization was adopted by the Soviet officials and the special Central Committee for a New Alphabet was established in Moscow. The first project of the Tatar-Bashkir Latin alphabet was published in Eşçe (The Worker) gazette in 1924. The pronunciation of the alphabet was similar to English, unlike the following. Specific Bashkir sounds were written with digraphs. This alphabet was declined.[1]

In 1926 the Congress of Turkologists in Baku recommended to switch all Turkic languages to the Latin script. In April 1926 the Jaꞑa tatar əlifʙasь/Yaña tatar älifbası/Яңа татар әлифбасы (New Tatar alphabet) society started its work at Kazan.[2]

On July 3, 1927, Tatarstan officials declared Jaꞑalif the official script of the Tatar language, replacing the Yanga imla script. The first variant of Jaꞑalif (acutes-Jaꞑalif ) is shown in the second table below. There were not separate letters for K and Q (realized as K) and for G and Ğ (realized as G), V and W (realized as W). Ş (sh) looked like the Cyrillic letter Ш (she). C and Ç were realized as in Turkish and the modern Tatar Latin alphabet and later were transposed in the final version of Jaꞑalif.[1]

In 1928 Jaꞑalif was reformed (see first table below) and was in active use for 12 years. Some sources claim that this alphabet had 34 letters, but the last was a digraph Ьj, used for the corresponding Tatar diphthong.[1] Another source states that the 34th letter was an apostrophe. They also give another sorting of the alphabet. (Ə after A, Ь after E)[2]

After the introduction of Jaꞑalif most of the books which were printed in the Arabic alphabet were withdrawn from libraries.

In 1939 the Stalinist government prohibited Jaꞑalif and it remained in use until January 1940. Jaꞑalif was also used in Nazi gazettes for prisoners of war and propaganda during World War II.[citation needed] The alphabet served until the 1950s, because most of the schoolbooks were printed before World War II. Some Tatar diasporas also used Jaꞑalif outside of the Soviet Union, for example the Tatar bureau of Radio Free Europe.

For 12 years of usage the Latin script, Arabic script (and not only Yaña imlâ, but İske imlâ too) also were used. One of the Musa Cälil's Moabit Notebooks was written in Jaꞑalif, and another was written in Arabic letters. Both notebooks were written in German prison, after 1939, the year when the Cyrillic script was established.

In 1930s Turkey became a potential enemiy of the Soviet Union. Even though Atatürk's alphabet was different from Jaꞑalif, for Soviet officials the Latin script was a symbol of the outer, bourgeois world. In 1939 Cyrillization of USSR was initiated. The alphabet was switched to Cyrillic "by labor's request".[clarification needed]

There are also several projects of Cyrillization. Ilminski's alphabet was forgotten and it could not be used, due to its religious origin. In 1938 professor M. Fazlullin introduced an adaptation of the Russian alphabet for the Tatar language, without any additional characters. Specific Tatar letters should be signed with the digraphs, consisting of similar Russian letters and the letters Ъ and Ь.[1]

In 1939 Qorbangaliev and Ramazanov offered their own projects that planned to use additional Cyrillic characters. Letters Ө, Ә, Ү, Һ were inherited from Jaꞑalif, but Җ and Ң were invented by analogy with Щ and Ц. Гъ and Къ should be used to designate Ğ and Q. By this project "ğädät" ("custom") was spelled as "гъәдәт", "qar" ("snow") as "къар". In Ramazanov's project W (Jaꞑalif V) was marked by В before the vowel, and У, Ү in the end of syllable. Jaꞑalif: vaq – вак; tav – тау; dəv – дәү. On May 5, 1939 this project was established as official by the Supreme Soviet of TASSR. The Tatar society disagreed to this project and during 1940 July conference a Cyrillic alphabet was standardized. January 10, 1941 this project was passed. According to this version, "ğädät" was spelled as "гадәт", "qar" as "кар". The principles were following: if га/го/гу/гы/ка/ко/ку/кы/ is followed by "soft syllable", containing "ә, е, ө, и, ү" or soft sign "ь", they are pronounced as ğä/ğö/ğü/ğe/qä/qö/qü/qe, in other cases as ğa/ğo/ğu/ğı/qa/qo/qu/qı. гә/гө/гү/ге/кә/кө/кү/ке are pronounced as gä/gö/gü/ge/kä/kö/kü/ke. Similar practice were applied for е, ю, я, that could be pronounced as ye, yü, yä and as yı, yu, ya. Examples: канәгать – qänäğät (satisfied); ел – yıl (year); ямь – yäm (charm). In Tatar Cyrillic soft sign is not used to show iotation as in Russian, but to show qualities of vowels where they are not determinable through vowel harmony. Unlike modern Russian, some words can end with ъ, to sign a "hard g" after the "soft vowel", as in балигъ – baliğ (of the full legal age).[1]

All Russian words are written as in Russian and should be pronounced with Russian pronunciation.

In 1955, 1958, 1959 and 1989 some people[who?] tried to create a new Tatar Cyrillic alphabet, adding letters Қ, Ғ and Ў, to write the sounds [q], ɣ (ğ), and [w] and make Tatar spelling phonetic. Some offered to use V instead of Ў. In 1990s those attempts failed, because at that period many Tatarstan statesmen wanted to restore Jaꞑalif.[citation needed]

Cyrillic Ь-like letter, in some fonts also looks like Ƅ, and is not currently represented in Unicode. Only some Tatar fonts use this glyph.

N-descender, a variant of Ŋ, that was used in Jaꞑalif and is represented in Unicode since 6.0. Only some Tatar fonts use this glyph at the position of Ñ.

In the 1990s some wanted to restore Yañalif, or Yañalif+W, as being corresponding to modern Tatar phonetics. But technical problems, such as font problems and the disuse of Uniform Turkic alphabet among other peoples forced to use "Turkish-based alphabet". In 2000 that alphabet was adopted by the Tatarstan government, but in 2002 it was abolished by the Russian Federation.[1]

The "Internet-style" alphabet named Inalif after Internet and älifba was convented in 2003 and partly it was inspired by Jaꞑalif. The main purpose of this alphabet was a standardization of texts, which are written only with English keyboard, without any diacritical marks. But this is not a simple transliteration of non-English symbols of Jaꞑalif or modern alphabet. Non-English letters are represented like digraphs, soft vowels are represented like combination of the pairmate and apostrophe, excluding y, that firstly in Tatar writing represent ı (ы), probably under the influence of Transliteration of Russian and grammar of the Slavic languages. Like in Jaꞑalif, j represent [j], and zh is used for j of modern and ƶ of Jaꞑalif. X isn't used in Inalif and kh uses instead of them. Other changes include: Ä – A'; Ö – O'; Ü – U'; Ç – Ch; Ğ - Gh; Ñ - Ng; Ş - Sh. The sorting of Inalif isn't published, but computer sorting consider to use English sorting. Inalif is used only on the Internet.[3]